The circumstances of your area are so individual that without specifying a specific city or town you're pretty much not going to get any useful advice. And gen

The circumstances of your area are so individual that without specifying a specific city or town you're pretty much not going to get any useful advice. And generalizing the Bay Area to all other higher salary + higher CoL places is also going to yield no useful insight. Or in other words - your parent comment about how articles like this are why you don't consider relocating neglects the fact that there are likely middle ground locations where you could be paid a higher wage while still paying a lower rent. One simply can't extrapolate that much when looking at CoL or salary.